


Ring Around the Moon

by Alyssa_bird



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Practical Magic Fusion, M/M, Magic Realism, Magic!lock, Sherlock AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-04
Updated: 2014-08-04
Packaged: 2018-02-11 18:32:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2078676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alyssa_bird/pseuds/Alyssa_bird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which the Holmes family bears a curse that dooms anyone who dares love a Holmes to inevitably die.</p><p>Practical Magic fusion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ring Around the Moon

"We're cursed you know,"

"What?"

"Grandmother was a witch, she had the gift of magic."

"Of course, Dad told me,"

"Well, twelve years after Dad was born, Grandfather died. Grandmother was so heartbroken that, in a moment of despair, she cast a spell so that she would never again feel the agony of love. But, as her heart grew more bitter, the spell turned into a curse. A curse that doomed any person who dared love a Holmes."

"Is that why Mum died? Because of the curse?"

"Yes, Sherlock, that's exactly why. One day Dad heard the ticking of the deathwatch beetle. It ticked for Mum's death all day long until it suddenly stopped."

"Because that's when Mum died?"

"Precisely,"

"I hope I never fall in love, Mycroft."

"Me too, Sherlock, me too."

_____

"Well done, Mycroft!" Mr. Holmes cheered as Mycroft sprinkled the smallest pinch of belladonna into his concoction. The mixture stirred as if there was a small tornado inside. "You certainly have a gift."

Sherlock scrunched up his face. "What about me?"

"Oh, don't worry. Your talents will bloom in time." He assured his son.

Mr. Holmes' eyes flickered up, a second later there was a tentative knock at the door.

"Boys, go upstairs. Mycroft, I want you to help Sherlock with his potions." He walked across the kitchen to retrieve a large leather bound book from the cupboard. He looked at his boys and said in a stern voice, "Go!"

The boys scampered out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Once they were at the top, Mycroft stopped. 

"What are you doing?" Sherlock hissed.

"I want to see! Now be quiet!"

They watched as Mr. Holmes opened the front door, a teary eyed woman with frizzy hair stood on their doorstep. 

"They....they said you could help," She whimpered.

"Of course, come in. What can I do for you?"

The woman shoved 50 pound note into his hand. "I want him to love me so badly that it hurts!"

"You're after a love spell?"

"Yes," she cried.

Mr. Holmes thought for a second. "I need for you to know that a love spell is not a proper substitute for the real thing. The love this person will feel for you will not be real. They will only be acting under the influence of my spell. It will be an artificial love."

"I don't care. I want him to love me so much that he can't stand it!" She began to sob.

"Be careful what you wish for,"

"I love him."

"Of course you do."

_____

The Holmes' sat on the porch of their white Victorian home. On quiet afternoons like this, Mr. Holmes tried to expand his sons gifts by allowing them to practice levitating their tricycles and toys in the yard.

"Why do people hate us, Father?" Sherlock asked.

"They don't hate us, we're just different."

Mycroft piped up. "They call us freaks at school, one of them even told me that you're the devil."

Mr. Holmes chuckled. "People are just afraid of the things they can't explain."

"Dad, look!"

Sherlock had managed to levitate his telescope higher than the large oak tree.

_____

24 years later.

It rained on the day Mr. Holmes died on January 26th. The ceremony was small, consisting only of the Holmes' closest friends, a few witches and warlocks. He had left the house to his sons. The morning after the burial, the two brothers took notice that, over night, two gorgeous rose bushes had bloomed in their garden. 

"It's Father," Mycroft said, smiling.

"I know." Sherlock replied.

_____

The Holmes brothers made their weekly trip to their town's small town square. Mycroft popped in and out of their various shops while Sherlock usually whined and complained the entire time.   
Because of the reputation they inherited from their father, their presence in the community was quite the disturbance. Older women gasped and clutched their hearts. Mothers grabbed their children and held them close and gave the brothers dirty looks. 

"I just wish we were normal," Sherlock mumbled as they walked along the fresh food market.

"Oh, Sherlock, normality is so boring! Look at all these dull little goldfish!" He gestured toward a young couple and their newborn baby. "The husband is having an affair with the nanny and the wife can finish a whole bottle of wine by herself!"

Sherlock shrugged. "Boring or not, it's what I want."

"Pish posh, I'd rather have our beautiful gifts than a bastard husband or a drunk wife."

Distracted, Sherlock accidentally bumped into a man pushing along a crate full of fruit.

"Sorry, mate! Didn't see you there." The man smiled at Sherlock. He had blond hair and pretty blue eyes.

"It's quite all right." Sherlock said, removing his impossibly dark lensed sunglasses. 

"Better watch out, everyone knows this street on a Tuesday is deceptively treacherous!"

Sherlock and the blue eyed man laughed and Mycroft had an idea.

_____

"Mighty Hecate, 

Give them each the power of trust,

The power of passion,

The power of lust,

Make both hearts ache and wonder,

Make both hearts love each other."

_____

Mycroft was drinking tea in the garden and Sherlock was inspecting the rosemary.

Mycroft looked at his watch. It was 3:00 P.M. on the dot. His eyes flickered up to Sherlock's crouched form. While picking away at the plant, Sherlock suddenly froze and stood up. 

"Something wrong?" Mycroft asked coyly.

"I...I have to go," Determined, Sherlock briskly walked away from the house and towards the town square. 

In the middle of the market, John Watson dropped the oranges he was carrying, almost in a daze, he left his fruit stand and began to walk in the direction of the old Holmes house.

_____

They met each other halfway.

"Hello,"

"Hi,"

"I'm John Watson,"

"I know. I'm Sherlock Holmes."

"I know."

"I...I don't know why...but I think I love you, Sherlock Holmes."

"I think I love you too, John Watson."

"I think we should kiss now."

And so they did.

_____

Their days were spent talking, laughing, and drinking tea in the garden. Sherlock allowed John to watch him make potions. He made John laugh and gasp in amazement while he made the teaspoon in John's cup stir the liquid inside on it's own. 

Their nights were spent in Sherlock's bed. Their mouths mapping out the places that would make their lover gasp and hold them tighter. 

And thus Sherlock had his wish, a normal life. 

A somewhat normal life with a man he could not stop kissing.

Mycroft reveled in his victory all the while.

_____

"Sherlock, come back to bed." John mumbled sleepily, patting the empty space.

Sherlock stared out of the window, still as a statue.

"There's a ring around the moon," He said silently.

"And?"

Sherlock turned his head to the side. "That means trouble is coming."

_____

"Can't you just...use a spell or something?"

John was turning Sherlock's bedroom upside down looking for his left shoe. 

"I won't use magic for dull purposes such as finding lost items. You can't rely on magic all the time, it's not healthy. It's a gift not a superpower."

"Ugh!" John groaned, kicking at the pile of clothes on the floor.

"You do realize that you practically live here now?"

"What?" John asked, half his body under the bed.

"You spend almost every night here, your belongings are scattered all throughout the house. For Merlin's sake, your toothbrush is here! You might as well just move in officially."

John emerged from under the bed, a smile on his face. "You mean that? You want me to move in?"

"Of course," Sherlock wrapped his arms around John's waist, bringing him closer. "Of course."

_____

"I have something for you." Sherlock opened his drawer and pulled out a necklace made out of rope.

"What is it?" John asked.

"It's for protection." He slipped it around John's neck and tied the ends together. "This is the exact same rope they used whilst trying to hang my great great great great great, you get the point, Grandmother. But her gift saved her, she was able to use her magic to snap the rope and she lived. This rope kept her safe and it will do the same for you."

John toyed with the rope. "Safe from what?"

Sherlock was quiet for a long time.

_____

Days later, while John slept, Sherlock snuck from his room to stand in the garden. He looked up at the full moon with fearful eyes, there was a peculiar reddish tinge to it.

A voice startled him. "Blood on the moon."

He turned to see Mycroft, his face grave.

"I'm scared," Sherlock whispered. "I'm scared for John. I'm a poison. A toxin. A death sentence. He has to get away from me before it's too late."

"Now, Sherlock. Blood on the moon tonight could be predicting many things, not necessarily death."

"I hope you're right." Sherlock said.

Mycroft hoped he was right too.

_____

John puttered around the garden while Sherlock prepared the tea just the way John liked it. Every now and then John would point at plant and ask, "What's this?"

"Lavender. We don't get to use it very much but Dad always said to keep Lavender in your garden for good luck."

"And what's this?"

"Sage," Sherlock set down the teapot. "You know, Mycroft and I hardly need half the stuff we grow. It's more of a hobby for me, really."

"What? Has business gotten slow? I thought you and Mycroft were up to your eyeballs in pathetic love spells?" John teased, taking a seat next to Sherlock and lacing his fingers with his lover's. 

"I was just saying that perhaps you could sell some of the plants I grow at your little stand."

"I think that'd be lovely."

_____

Wednesday morning Sherlock kissed John goodbye and watched as he walked down the lane and into town. Soon after, while watering the garden, he heard a strange ticking that he'd never heard in person before but had been described to him in great detail by his father, he was positive he knew what it was.

The deathwatch beetle.

The beetle's ticking followed him from the garden to the kitchen to the bedroom and even in the bathroom.

"Just ignore it," Mycroft said. " Don't let it get to you, it will all be okay."

And so Sherlock did, he went about his day ignoring the sound that marked down John's death. He thought of the advice his father gave him when was twenty. 

"If you ever hear the ticking of the deathwatch beetle, you must never try to change your lover's fate. It could lead to serious repercussions. It's tempting but terrible things happen to those who try to change the hands of the fates."

Sherlock sat in agony, wincing every time the beetle ticked. He painfully grabbed at his ears and shouted to block out all other sound.

Then, suddenly, the ticking stopped. 

Sherlock felt as if all the air had been sucked out of him and he collapsed in the library. He knew in that moment that John was gone.

_____

"He died because he loved me so much!" Sherlock cried, throwing a vase across the room. "He died because I just couldn't stay away, I loved him!"

Mycroft stood still under the orangey light of their kitchen, he stared at the shattered glass on the linoleum.

"If I had known when I casted the spell..."

Sherlock froze, "What did you just say? What spell?"

"I didn't expect that he'd truly love you," Mycroft said ashamedly. "Or that you'd truly love him in return."

"Oh, no. Please, no, no, Mycroft. Please tell me you didn't. My own flesh and blood, what have you done?"

"Love spells are strictly artificial. You cannot truly love while under it's affects. Therefore, I thought John would be safe. He truly lived you, Sherlock. He loved you. He really did. I'm so sorry."

Sherlock's eyes turned to ice. "Bring him back," He said. "Get the book and bring him back to me."

"No, Sherlock. That is absolutely out of the question."

"I don't give a fuck, bring him back to me now!" He shouted.

"He wouldn't be John anymore! He'd come back wrong. He wouldn't be human."

"I don't care what he comes back as! As long as he comes back," Sherlock began to crumble, he fell to his knees, ignoring the shards of glass sticking into his skin. "Please." He begged.

"I'm sorry, I truly am but we can't."

"Mycroft. Please."

"No."

...

Later, Mycroft slowly approached Sherlock's crumpled figure on the floor. He dropped the smallest amount of belladonna in the glass before setting it next to his younger brother.

"Drink this, it'll help you sleep."

______

The next morning, Mycroft awoke from the armchair in Sherlock's bedroom, startled to find Sherlock's bed empty. 

"Sherlock?" He called, fearing the worst. "Sherlock!"

Mycroft ran all throughout the house only to find every room empty. Finally, he looked out the kitchen window to find a familiar figure standing in the garden.

Mycroft ran out. "Sherlock, thank goodness!" He panted.

Sherlock turned around, his eyes tearful, a slight smile on his face. "Look!" He pointed.

Mycroft followed and his eyes fixed on the beautiful tulips that had begun to bloom. They grew right next to Mr. Holmes' roses.

Mycroft smiled. "John?"

"Yes," Sherlock whispered. "It's John."


End file.
